Quotes from Douglas Wilson

humanity is what it is in the recesses of our hearts, and it is what it is in the public square.

No greater indictment of the contemporary church than this can be found: the secular state is operating on all cylinders, and yet for the most part, the Christian pulpit remains a safe place to be.

When it comes to the history of ideas, it is relatively simple to show that religious toleration, which includes tolerating verbal expressions of ideas repugnant to you, is an idea that germinated in Christian soil. In Christian history, we see it as early as Lactantius (an early church father who tutored Constantine's kids), and it comes to full bloom in the American Bill of Rights. Letting other people express their errors without fear of reprisal is a distinctively Christian ideal.

Leftism is that impulse that wants to establish coercion and call it community. Apply

ironically, we call this attempt by some women to be more like men "feminism," which is more than a little bit like calling an attempt by cats to be like dogs felinism.

This covenant with Abraham, confirmed to him in Christ, was a covenant which by its very nature could not be annulled (Gal. 3:17). We can see how God has fulfilled His promise to Abraham; it is by the blood of this everlasting covenant that we as Christians are saved (Heb. 13:20). The covenant made with Abraham is still in force today; this glorious covenant made with Abraham millennia ago is nothing other than the new covenant.

A man cannot simultaneously want the salvation of God, and desire to remain in the sin from which God saves.

The father should take the lead in gratitude. He should lead the family on complimenting her on her meals, on her appearance, and for the work she does in keeping the home running smoothly. He should be saying "thank you" many times each day, and he should insist that his children learn to follow his example.

It makes a difference whether Moses or Jeroboam writes the history curriculum.

The Incarnation was a glorious event, and we don't want any diminution of that celebration. But the resurrection of the Lord was what remade the cosmos, and we should strive over time to have our celebration of Easter far surpass the glory of Christmas. We are currently more than a little lopsided—and we shouldn't try to fix this by reducing what we do at Christmas.

saving faith always looks to Christ and his promises. Saving faith does not focus on the presence or absence of saving faith. We are supposed to be looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We are not to be looking at ourselves, trying to determine if we are believing or not. "Myself believing" is not the proper object of my faith. Christ is the object of our faith.

God shakes what can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain (Heb. 12:27).

They weren't really looking for repentance; postmodern irony would do. When

If all things work together for good for them that love God and are called according to His purpose, then this means that billions of plot points are going to come together in the most satisfying cathartic release possible at the end of all time. The

Only a madman would try to market headache medicine today under the name John's Headache Pills. This would be insufficiently techno-marvelous. No, the name must sound like it carne out of a laboratory yesterday ... Zantistat 100, or something like that.

In the long run, pragmatism doesn't work. Focusing on the GDP alone is bad for the GDP. It does not profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul, and there is an additional sting when he then loses the world too. Whatever you worship in place of God is another thing you lose. Whatever you surrender gladly to Him is returned to you, pressed down, shaken, and running over.

A malicious racist is someone who directs malice, spite, or hatred toward another human being of another race because that person belongs to that other race. A patronizing racist is someone who takes personal ego credit for any superiority he may have (whether real or imagined, usually imagined) over someone who belongs to another race.

he hardly knew any facts and was thus having trouble sticking to them.

A racist, then, is someone who takes the scripturally insufficient grounds of racial differences to justify his own malice or petty pride.

The medievalist has the capacity, and the desire, to harmonize. He believes the planets sing in harmony; why cannot technology also sing?

And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses" (Neh. 4:14).

Violent overthrow of the revolution is revolutionary, and compromise with the revolution is revolutionary.

The church is in the world the way a ship is in the ocean, and that is the way it should be. But bad things start happening when the ocean gets into the ship.

If only there were a band of Burkian conservatives out there who were engaged in culture and were committed to a Kuyperian version of historic Reformed practice, if only there were something like that.